


sunlight on his tongue, sunlight in his arms

by rockcandyshrike



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, I'm serious this is just pure spun sugar fluff, Kissing, M/M, Pet Names, Pre-Guardians Era, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-15
Packaged: 2019-05-23 21:30:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14941733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rockcandyshrike/pseuds/rockcandyshrike
Summary: The happiest day of Chirrut Îmwe’s life was not his wedding day.Nor was it the day Baze Malbus returned the love Chirrut had long thought one-sided, the day they first made love, or the day they ascended to Guardianship hand in hand. They were all very closely tied for second, but the happiest outshined them all. It began with, of all things, a lump on his bed.





	sunlight on his tongue, sunlight in his arms

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to skuuuuuuuuuuuuun for looking this over for me *double finger guns*
> 
> NOW WITH FANART BY THE LOVELY KARINHART!: http://karinhart.tumblr.com/post/181685656820/a-while-back-i-promised-rockcandyshrike-that-id

Chirrut hears it from his friend Huen, who heard it from his gate guard partner Gendgylp, who heard it from Afajtr working on lunch duty, who heard it from Disciple Biabh in passing, who heard it from her former mentor Master Iccro, who heard it from their cousin Elder Tesrm, who told Baze himself during the Elders meeting in the Grand Rotunda. 

Baze has been given the honor of presenting to the Fellowship of Academic Force Studies and Applications at the Coruscanti convention this upcoming winter. 

Chirrut is so proud of his lover he could burst, but he finds it strange that he didn’t hear it from Baze himself. Come to think of it, he hasn’t seen Baze since breakfast and it’s been an hour or so since lunch. 

He makes a deal with Rurkd to cover his laundry shift if the other Guardian will cover leading his zama-shiwo class and hares off to find Baze. He checks the usual locations: the library, the gardens, the kilns, the armory, the kitchen. He scours the temple from top to bottom, asking everyone who usually interacts with Baze if they’ve seen him and keeping an ear out for his distinctive rumble. There’s not a whisper of his lover to be found. Chirrut stands in the middle of the Grandmaster’s Gallery and fiddles with his staff, absolutely flummoxed. Baze hadn’t mentioned any plans to visit the market, and Chirrut had already asked Master Guardian Yiski who liked to sit on the temple steps and welcome pilgrims. She would’ve certainly seen Baze if he had left the temple; after all, nothing gets past an Azumel’s six eyes. 

Chirrut harrumphs. Where, oh where has his Baze gone? He chews on his lower lip for a moment before deciding there’s only one way to find out. 

Chirrut inhales on a count of four, holds it for seven, and exhales on eight, “I am one with the Force, the Force is with me.” 

His focus turns inwards. His body slowly relaxes. The room, the temple, and all the confines of the physical fall away as he reaches out to the Force. The Force touches back gently, like a hand glancing against his cheek, before drifting down to his chin. It tilts his head up, directing his focus above him to the dormitories where the Guardians sleep. It guides his mind’s eye to Baze’s glowing presence in the Force, warm as the breath shared between lovers huddling together under a blanket and unwavering as a lighthouse that stands tall in the darkness. Chirrut laughs at himself when he realizes he never checked their room and strides off towards the dormitories with renewed vigor. 

He bursts into their room with a trill of “Baze Malbuuuus, guess what I heard through the grapevine~” only to be met with a groan and a pillow tossed half-heartedly at his face. 

He catches the pillow in one hand, tossing it back easily. It hits what sounds like another pillow and Chirrut’s mouth drops into an O of understanding. Baze has taken all of their pillows—truthfully his pillows since Chirrut only uses one—and built a nest to sulk in, a leftover habit from when they were younger that Baze still lapses into on occasion. 

_“_ I heard somebody was given the honor of presenting to the Fellowship of Academic Force Studies and Applications at the Coruscanti convention this upcoming winter,” Chirrut comments with an inquiry in his tone. He has an inkling of what the issue is, but he wants to hear it from Baze himself in case he’s wrong; he’s never wrong but you should never assume what your partner thinks if you want to cultivate and keep a healthy relationship according to the holozines he bribes Ymi into reading for him.

 _“Somebody,”_ Baze bemoans, “has to give a _speech_ in front of at least 200 people.”

 _“_ Oh is that all? Shouldn’t be a challenge for the future Grandmaster of the temple,” Chirrut says blithely.

Baze shoots a dirty look at him and growls, “That’s not, Grandmasters have to be, that’s, oh forget it.”

Baze hunkers down in his pillow nest to grump. Chirrut doesn’t even bother hiding his amusement, ambling towards the bed to flop over his lover.

 _“_ Oh Baze, my flower bud beloved, my hermit crab sweetheart, my roly poly boy.”

 _“_ Chirrut,” Baze warns him, though the pitch is higher than he likely intended and it comes out as a whine. Chirrut nuzzles the top of his head poking out from the fluffy mound and presses his grin into soft hair. It still smells like the ceremonial incense the Master Guardians light in the antechamber of the Grand Rotunda, woodsier than the normal sticks lit around the rest of temple. He inhales deeply, then nips at an ear; Baze can’t quite stifle a squeak. Chirrut snickers and drops more sweet names in between kisses to Baze’s face.

 _“_ My armadillo darling,” a peck to one wispy brow slowly growing in again after Baze’s last disastrous double-lightbow experiment, “my tortoise dearest,” a brush of the lips down Baze’s scrunched up nose to his quavering frown, “my oyster one and only,” he coos into the corner of Baze’s mouth as he cracks and turns his face towards Chirrut, rewarding him with a tiny, precious smile.

 _“_ I’m sure the presentation will go fine and everyone will see how brilliant you are, my geode beau.”

Baze’s mouth turns down again under his lips, and Chirrut rushes to kiss him on both cheeks (he clearly needs to give two kisses for every one endearment—actually, better make it three) and the spot where his jaw meets his neck that always makes Baze shiver without fail.

 _“_ I don’t want them to think I’m brilliant. I just don’t want to make a fool of myself,” Baze protests weakly. Chirrut burrows into the pillow heap to wrap his arms more firmly around Baze.

 _“_ You won’t make a fool of yourself, my handsome hedgehog,” a smooch under his droopy right eye, a smooch under his droopy left eye, and a smooch to his broad forehead, “and they will think you’re brilliant, my cherished chestnut, my precious porcupine,” he scatters pecks across Baze’s blushing face and feels his lover shaking with amusement at the ridiculous, schmaltzy endearments. Chirrut grins and goes for the kill.

 _“_ No need to fret, all is as the Force wills it, Baze Malbus, light of my life and durian of my eye.”

Baze bursts out laughing just as he expected, his voice booming in the small room they share, bouncing off the walls and surrounding Chirrut in symphonic bliss. Baze tosses the pillow he’s been hugging behind himself, and pulls Chirrut closer so he can squeeze him instead, pressing his roars of laughter into Chirrut’s neck. Chirrut smiles and rolls over so they can lie on their sides, running his fingers through Baze’s cropped hair and kissing him all over his face and neck and shoulders as the other man gentles down.

 _“_ Durian of your eye? What?” Baze wheezes out in between giggles.

 _“_ They’re prickly on the outside, but sweet on the inside,” Chirrut tilts his head down to swoop in for a kiss on Baze’s giggling mouth, “and they’re my favorite fruit, just as you’re my favorite person.”

 _“_ Not everyone likes durian. Some people hate it,” Baze says, free of any concern or self-consciousness; he knows what Chirrut’s going to say.

 _“_ Yes, they are an acquired taste. An acquired _superior_ taste” Chirrut responds imperiously and Baze lets out a rare cackle that sends Chirrut’s heart into orbit.

Baze rubs their noses together and heaves a sigh of contentment. Chirrut pets the feathery bristles growing in at his nape and hums a few measures of a song he heard from a pilgrim yestermorning. He knows his beloved can be prone to brooding—though truthfully this time he was working himself up into an impressive sulk—but while some may find such a trait tiresome, Chirrut feels unutterably lucky that he gets to be the one to soothe this wonderful man’s worries. Baze kisses him warmly and Chirrut tightens his arms in response. 

_“_ Thank you.”

 _“_ You know I’m always here for you, my treasured treacle tart,” Baze ducks his head and snorts riotously into Chirrut’s chest.

 _“_ Force, that one was _atrocious,_ ” he says once the snorting half-subsides.

 _“_ Oh I assure you, my humble bumblebee, my lovely lambikin,” a hail of kisses rain down upon Baze’s face, “I have much, much worse.”

Baze chuckles under the onslaught, “I think you’ve lost track of your theme.”

Chirrut shrugs and grins bright as a beacon, “I’m just going for alliteration or rhyming at this point, my singular sunflower,” he cuddles impossibly closer and drags his hands down Baze’s chest to play with the hem of his shirt while kissing along his jawline, “my doe-eyed dumpling,” Chirrut tenderly nibbles on an earlobe before whispering soft and sultry, “my marvelous marshmallow."

Baze completely loses it, throwing his head back and howling like a drunken Ferijian ape. Chirrut feels Baze’s Force presence ring through the universe like the kyber bell kept locked away in the highest room of the temple and only ever taken out once every turn of the century; his soul rings back in harmony. Baze laughs until his eyes well up with tears and he rasps, “Oh Force, no more, I’m going to be sick.”

 _“_ Lovesick I would hope,” Chirrut teases a little breathlessly as he traces his fingers down Baze’s neck, his lover’s pulse jumping beneath his fingertips.

Baze laughs again and kisses him off-center, “That’s a permanent, pre-existing condition. And I— _hiccup **!** ”_

Baze cuts off in surprise. He hasn’t had hiccups in years, they were so rare as to be non-existent for him. 

Chirrut clutches his heart and curls up like a ball; his heart swells in the most joyous agony. 

_“That was the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.”_

_“_ It was— _hiccup_ —just a hic— _hiccup, hiccup_ —Chirrut,” Baze says, a note of chagrin entering his voice as the hiccups take over.

Chirrut hadn’t realized he said that out loud and smushes his face into Baze’s chest so he can feel the hiccups as well as listen to them. 

_“This is the happiest day of my liiiiiiiife.”_

_“_ Seriou— _hiccup_ —sly, Chirrut?” Baze sputters.

Whoops, he said that out loud too. 

Chirrut pops his head back up and smiles wider than the sky, “I’ve never made you laugh so hard that you caught the hiccups before! We’ve known each other for almost a decade now, I was starting to worry you didn’t appreciate my sense of humor.” 

“Right now I— _hicCUP!—_ don’t,” Baze harrumphs and Chirrut doesn’t need to see to know he’s pouting.

Chirrut frames Baze’s face with his hands, squishing his cheeks and fawning over his lover, “Oh Baze, my swooning sweet potato, you bring such bliss to my life.” Baze gives out a bemused snort and Chirrut kisses one, two, up his chin to taste the hiccup that follows it.

“You’re so— _hiccup_ —strange, Chirrut,” Baze mumbles against his lips, sulking quelled once again by kisses.

“You like it,” Chirrut says, his hands rubbing counter-clockwise over Baze’s cheeks, “If the hiccups bother you that much I can fetch a bottle of water from the kitchen.”

“No,” Baze sighs and rolls over to flatten Chirrut to the bed, “It’s fine. I’ll— _hiccuphiccup_ —just ride it out.”

Chirrut brushes his lips along his lover’s hairline and hums the rest of the song from yestermorning’s pilgrim. The Force around them and binding them hums along and Chirrut glories in the moment, hoping to engrave it into his memory so he can carry it for the rest of their days.

“You have sunset call to prayer duty don’t you?” he asks.

Baze grunts, “I do. What— _hiccup_ —time is it now?”

“Don’t worry, sunset is hours away. We can stay here in your carefully constructed pillow nest.”

Baze grunts in a pale mimicry of his usual grunt of exasperation and hits Chirrut with one of his pillows. It’s the one stuffed with tiny beads though, so it makes a very sad _shlap_ noise when it glances off his shoulder. Chirrut smirks.

 _“_ Don’t make fun. It’s cozy,” Baze faux-grouses.

 _“_ Oh, it’s the best pillow nest in the world, I assure you. Thank you for your graciousness and letting me be your guest,” Chirrut flatters, courtly as a prince and glib as a rake.

“Guest,” Baze scoffs, getting into his role, “as if I wouldn’t want you to stay forever.”

Chirrut feels himself melt into a puddle. “I’d love nothing more,” he says softly, dropping their play-acting. He kisses his lover, his heart of kyber, and Baze is powerless to do anything but lean into it. “Hey, your hiccups stopped.”

 _“_ Thank Force for that,” Baze says as he resituates his arms more snugly around Chirrut’s waist. Chirrut squirms up the bed til he can tuck Baze’s head under his chin, settling in like a sand vulpe into the dunes of Jedha.

 _“_ Take a nap. You’ve stressed yourself out too much.”

Baze nuzzles into Chirrut’s neck and breathes out, “Alright, wake me if the next hour bell doesn’t.”

“Of course, my Baze.”

Baze closes his eyes and shifts into a more comfortable position. He smiles as Chirrut kisses him tenderly on his right eyelid, on his left eyelid, and finally on his mouth. He slips easily into sleep.

Chirrut sends a long, heartfelt prayer of thanks to the Force. It isn't long before he drops off into a doze, fantasies of Baze’s Grandmaster coronation flickering in his mind.

**Author's Note:**

> *terrible british accent* ello Yewchube, if you like this fic please kudo, comment, bookmark and/or subscribe! All feedback is appreciated. I'm rockcandyshrike on Tumblr, hit me up ;)


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